Donald Berwick, President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in 2015: ‘The Scottish Patient Safety Programme, marks Scotland as a leader, second to no nation on earth, in its commitment to reducing harm to patients, dramatically and continually.’

As Ruth Davidson’s supposedly strong reputation begins to collapse as Theresa May makes it clear she has little influence of central party policy and as Scottish Labour face civil war between Corbynites and Sarwar supporters, the SNP look strong with good reason to expect further increases in their lead.

Here are the Scottish ‘voting intention’ subset sample figures from the YouGov/Times survey based on fieldwork between the 30th and 31st of August 2017:

Conservative 23%

Green 4%

Labour 26%

Lib Dem 5%

SNP 40%

That’s a strong result after facing the Corbynite surge and the media-constructed inflation of Ruth Davidson and the supposed Tory surge. Things can only improve as the Scottish government continues to impress with policies diametrically opposed to the Tories. The poll as a whole, puts Labour, in the UK, only one point ahead of the Tories on 41%. That tells you something disturbing, especially, for Scots. Despite their series of policy disasters and internal conflicts, England remains a place where the Tories are always a threat and can come through to power regardless of their competence or callous policies (bedroom tax, rape clause etc). Indeed, I have to assume that it is these very callous policies that keep their support up amongst a large section of the English population.

The first past the post system means that the UK Tories on 40% can always win while the Scottish Tories, generally at less than 25% never can. It’s one of those differences between the two countries that suggest the need for separation.

One interesting detail which I think can further increase the confidence of the SNP is in the table of issues which respondents think the most important. Right across the UK, Health was rated the most important but with 58% of Scots rating it so compared with 67% of Southern English doing so. I could be reading too much into to this but does it suggest Scots feel their NHS is performing better than those in the South of England do? Southern English voters were subject to daily accounts of NHS crises, even a ‘humanitarian crisis’, according to the Red Cross, over the winter of 2016/2017 whereas NHS Scotland commonly outperforms the rest of the country. See for example:

11 thoughts on “SNP hold on to major lead in Scotland according to YouGov Poll”

ClydebuiltSeptember 5, 2017 / 9:02 am

Think your spot on re the NHS. Folks in England know their NHS is under serious pressure. Our state broadcaster tries to hide the collapse in England’s public services from the Scottish audience. They don’t want Scots to be able to compare the Scottish Health Service with England’s NHS.

Heard Canavan interviewed on radio this week. He said that if SLAB win in Scotland they can never guarantee their election promises will be put into practise since the Tories usually win in England and until SLAB support Independence for Scotland their election prospects will not improve.

The main BBC News – the one that goes nationwide – virtually ignores the great job being done by the Scottish NHS. It seldom compares performance, and when it does it is dismissive. . . .”different metrics” etc. We can see that the NHS in England is constantly in crisis and many trusts are building up huge deficits.
So, the BBC hides the facts about the Scottish NHS (as does most of the MSM) and most certainly hides the Tory Govt’s privatisation plans. Some might call this collusion.
Will this change?
Answers on a postcard…
PS The BBC has absolutely no fear of the Scottish govt. Its constant stream of SNPbad, or the fact that it simply downplays Scotland’s place in the world is accepted with total impunity and without challenge.

I say as before, for Labour the policy is, ‘Why go through all the difficulties of telling the truth when lies could put us in power’. All the news manipulation, loading political programmes with placemen for the government or a political party is part of the lies.